Federal Court Stays Major Labels v. Altice Copyright Lawsuit

With the marathon copyright dispute between the major labels and Cox Communications heading to the Supreme Court, a federal court has officially paused a separate showdown involving Altice USA.

Judge Roy S. Payne stayed the majors v. Altice battle yesterday, days after both sides jointly moved to continue (or, alternatively, stay) the trial and related deadlines. The music-space plaintiffs fired off the complaint in December 2023, and the better part of two years later, the trial had therefore been teed up for September of this year.

(Altice last year settled a technically different copyright suit, levied by BMG, Concord, and Universal Music; Sony Music, Warner Music, and a number of their subsidiaries are behind the ongoing action.)

“The Cox decision will address and could alter the legal standards for key issues in this case, including contributory infringement for a broadband internet service provider and willful infringement, potentially requiring a retrial on liability, damages, or both,” the litigants wrote.

“The Parties agree that proceeding to trial now, before the Supreme Court’s decision in Cox, risks both the Parties and this Court expending significant resources to complete pre-trial proceedings and prepare for and hold a trial, only to have wasted the jury’s time and have to repeat those efforts as a result of the decision in Cox,” they proceeded.

As many know, this is one of several copyright confrontations between the majors and ISPs. Unsurprisingly, then, Verizon last week moved to pause a distinct-but-similar action until the Supreme Court weighs in, with Google doing the same in a non-music infringement case.

(Technically, the majors opposed Verizon’s stay proposal during pre-request discussions, according to the defendant.)

All that said, we aren’t without indications of how the increasingly ugly majors-Altice action was unfolding before the stay.

In a motion for summary judgement concerning the ISP’s safe-harbor defense – referring to DMCA-created liability protections for service providers that address infringing customer/user activity – the plaintiffs last week emphasized that “Altice did as little as possible” to curb repeat infringement.

Unfortunately for us, the document’s public version features more than a few redactions. But the intact portions of the filing paint a pretty clear picture of the dispute’s tone.

“First and foremost,” the majors penned, “the design and implementation of Altice’s policy are the antithesis of reasonable, making a farce of the DMCA’s repeat infringer termination policy requirement.

“Indeed, the direct consequence of Altice’s repeat infringer policy was that subscribers could infringe repeatedly without consequence,” they continued.

Though it probably doesn’t need saying, there’s a lot riding on the aforesaid Supreme Court review, which is reportedly expected to deliver a ruling by June 30th, 2026.